A Dreadful Adventure

After a long, long, journey to New York City, I arrived at my hotel and, to my relief, I arrived in one piece. I stayed a couple blocks away from Tribeca Cinemas, the place where the Penny Dreadful season two premier would take place and, after traveling in a taxi for the first time in New York, I was glad the place was at a walking distance.

On Thursday evening my three friends and I were standing outside of the building. After a little confusion about where we were supposed to go, we found ourselves walking through a door that lead us inside a mysterious place called: The Varick Room. The reception was going to be held there. By the way, one of my friends was asked to show her ID because she looked too young. I wasn’t asked for my ID so, I automatically assumed I must look a hundred years old.

Once inside, to my right there was a little red carpet and a Penny Dreadful backdrop to take pictures on. When two of my friends and I were taking a picture on the red carpet, the photographer of the event snapped a picture of us. This picture ended up on Getty Images.

Next to the red carpet was a siting area and to my front there was a table with some props from season one which included: Ethan Chandler’s knife and telegram, Sir Malcolm’s cane, Vanessa Ives’s teacup, and some of the photographs Sir Malcolm took from the vampire’s corpse. Beside the table there was a rack with some of the new Penny Dreadful clothing collection hanging on it. The clothes will be sold by Hot Topic soon and, just so you know, they look even better up close.

We got some drinks and were just settling in at one of the tables when I turned around and saw a group of people, two of my friends included, surrounding Reeve Carney; talking to him and taking pictures with him.

After that, he was lead to the red carpet for pictures. Then, more people, women of course, talked and took even more pictures with him, myself included. I wanted to take a picture with him but he seemed so busy that I didn’t want to bother him so Gen, one of my friends, gave me a little push, literally with her hip! I almost bumped into him because of this push! I knew she was not going to stop there so my fear of bumping into Reeve overpowered my shyness giving me the courage to tap him on the shoulder and ask him if he would take a picture with me. He turned his head towards me and said, smiling: “Yeah yeah, sure.”

Reeve placed his right arm around me, his hand on my upper arm. He does this all the time when taking pictures, by the way. I didn’t know what to do with my left arm so I, awkwardly, placed my hand on his back trying to touch him as least as possible. My friend Gen took the picture, three consecutive and swift pictures to make sure at least one wasn’t blurry.

He was just letting go of me when my other friend, Cin, took out her Ipad to take another picture saying: “Hold on” I turned to Reeve, mortified, and said: “I’m so sorry” to which he replied: “No, no. It’s all right” and posed, yet again, for another picture. I must’ve apologized to him about five times in a row afterwards but he was very sweet about it.

Soon after, it was time to see the first episode of Penny Dreadful season two. We made our way through another door that lead us to our seats in front of the big screen. The episode started with an introduction from John Logan giving us an overall idea of what season two will be about, followed by the episode.

The Q&A came after that. Reeve was humble and funny when answering the questions, which were, pretty much, what we all know about the show so far and he refused to give any spoilers on the grounds that, “He didn’t want to get in trouble”.  When he was asked what was the most challenging part of working in Penny Dreadful he said, “Every single day was challenging for me, that’s one of the reasons why I love to be a part of the show.” The Q&A was brief, it lasted about 30 minutes.

When we returned to the reception room, there were two tables full of Penny Dreadful tote bags filled with Penny Dreadful gifts, including: the book of The Making of Penny Dreadful, a shirt, a scented candle, an amazon card to download the first season free, a decanter and glass, and the tarot cards.

Reeve continued taking pictures and talking with the guests as he sipped on red wine. On one occasion, two girls had been talking with him for a long time when a guy approached him to say goodbye. Reeve gave him a hug and thanked him for going to the event. The guy whispered to Reeve if he needed to be ‘saved’ hinting at the two girls.  Reeve smiled and said, “No, no, man. I’m fine, thanks”. He thanked him again and returned to his conversation with the girls after the guy left.

I’m too shy. I had minimal interaction with Reeve at the event, although he was a few paces away from me for the rest of the evening. I was more of an observer, I only participated a briefly in some of the conversation my friends had with him.

When it was time to leave, I waved goodbye to him as I thanked him for taking a picture with me. He gave me a, tight, hug in response and said, “Thank you guys so much for coming out tonight.” After that, this was our conversation:
Me: “No, thank you for being so nice.”
Reeve: “No, no. Thank you for coming.”
Me: “No, no. Thank you.”
Reeve: “No, thank you.”
Me: “No, thank you.”
Reeve: “No, seriously. Thank you.”

At that point I realized how ridiculous I was sounding so I said goodbye, turned on my heel, and went after my friends. The only reason why I had stayed away from Reeve during the event was because I didn’t want to look like a foolish person but in the end, I managed to do just that…and more. [Sighs] After meeting some friends outside of the venue we retired to the hotel, had some drinks, and talked about our dreadful adventure until we couldn’t keep our eyes open any longer.